Slashdot Mirror
WTO Awards Caribbean Country Right to Ignore US Copyright
The WTO's recent ruling on Antigua's complaint against the US over the banning of online gambling resulted in a payment to the island nation much less than they asked for. It appears, though, that this payment was just part of the WTO's compensation package for Antigua/Barbuda. Via Kotaku, the Hollywood Reporter notes that the Caribbean country can now freely ignore US copyright laws - legally. This dispensation is apparently limited to some $21 million a year. "The WTO often takes decisions awarding trade compensation in cases where one nation's policies are found to break its rules. But this is only the second time the compensation lets one country violate intellectual property laws. In this case, Antigua will -- in theory -- be allowed to distribute copies of American DVDs, CDs and games and software with impunity. 'That has only been done once before and is, I believe, a very potent weapon,' Antigua's lawyer Mark Mendel said. 'I hope that the United States government will now see the wisdom in reaching some accommodation with Antigua over this dispute.'"
Holy Shit!
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Under this administration, The WTO and Antiguan people are now terrorists. Prepare for us to spend 1 billion dollars a day in taxpayer funds to attack you now.
Don't Tread on Me
for web hosting
The cartel will probably urge the US government to bomb the country into oblivion before it gets the opportunity to violate the sacrosanct copyright system.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Either online gambling is legalized and we win, or we can legally download movies, music, and software from Antigua, and we win. Huzzah for the WTO!
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Attacking recognition of US copyright and patent monopolies is a good way to rein in the USA on an international level. A large chunk of the US economy is now "intangibles", basically fairy dust. To really tank the US economy (only a good thing for the rest of us, despite self-deluding crap in the US about how the rest of the world needs the US to "buy their stuff" - sure, just like black ants need a bunch of lazy-ass red ants lording it over them...), complete lack of recognition of US copyrights and patents would go a long way.
Does this apply to exports, or in-country use only? Would it mean that an Antiguan company could sell mp3's online to customers in Europe/Canada/USA/Australia? I'm guessing that in the USA you'd be arrested for buying from Antigua, if not due to existing laws then due to something coming in the near future, but how about other countries?
I would happily spend my USD with them.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Dupe .... and a late one at that.
US copyrights are *already* widely ignored. How is this any different?
Since when did "free trade" translate into an abandonment of sovereignty in favor of having an unelected global organization dictate national policy? If the people of the United States (or any country) want to ban online gambling then what business of the WTO is it? At least when the WTO steps in over protective tariffs that makes SOME sense. If a product is completely outlawed though, how the hell is a free trade issue?
Can the Netherlands file a WTO complaint because some of their products (cannabis coffee shops) illegal in the United States? Can the United States file a complaint because some of our exports (pornography) are illegal in Saudi Arabia? Where the hell does it end?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
where is this wonderful place you all speak of?
This actually hurts the Democrats major donors.
A Republican admin has little incentive to fix this.
Sorry Zonk, you must have had a great Christmas because in the middle of your blackout you missed that this is a DUPE.
The landmark decision by the Geneva-based trade watchdog means that the tiny islands are able to violate intellectual property protection worth up to $21 million as part of a dispute between the countries over online gambling.
So they get to "violate" $21M USD worth of IP, then they are infringing. So 21 million MP3's (if iTunes is considered fair market value). Apple claims 2.5 million downloads per week, so presuming everyone from iTunes now downloaded from Antigua at the same rate, they'd be done in 8.4 weeks. Anything past that would be punishable IP infringement.
But again, those numbers are all suspect, what is the real dollar amount of IP? The point being, though, this isn't a free flowing well, it is finite and capped each year. So enjoy it for a few weeks, Antigua. Christmas in January.
Only 21 million dollars a year?
So how much does the intellectual property cost of a movie these days? The production cost + all royalties they expect to make? So by ignoring the property rights to lets say a harry potter would cost them upwards of 200 million +? Sounds like that's still illegal.
Intellectual property is inflated by a lot these days, and the price is set by the owner. Even a single song can net more than 21 million if the owner decides. Sounds like they'll still be breaking the law if they ever want to choose something to ignore.
As I sit looking out my window across a lovely but frigid blanket of white to the filthy, freezing slush on the street and notice a pedestrian being blown off the sidewalk by an icy, knife-edged wind, I think of setting up a nice little pirate factory to legally crank out stuff that will drive the RIAA to frothing, incoherent rage on one of the nicer Caribbean islands.
And a drink. A drink with an umbrella in it. Could life be better?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
This is like slapping a lion with a dead gazelle in its mouth in the face with a glove.
The US won't say they are terrorists. They will say that they are using the money to fund terrorism and use that as a justification to invade.
"Judge: You see, we know this guy owes you money and doesn't want to pay it, but he's really well connected and we can't do anything about it. In return we allow you to steal property from him with no legal repercussions. Let's hope that before you steal it all he'll pay you back."
A contrived example, but you get the point (I hope). How can a court even allow something like this?
Buy a plane ticket before they change their minds!
Check out my sysadmin blog!
Wow, that was an articulate post there...
I'm going to setup a copy shop and start selling pirate copies of Ubuntu. Who's with me?
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
21 Million? That's it??? Who defines how much the copyright is worth? That's like two movies on Bittorent according to the MPAA.
Could a company in Antigua take GPL software, strip out the copyrights and then "sell" that newly licensed code to Microsoft?
So, using Antigua, have they found the hole in the GPL they have been looking for?
The truth is that this has been expected for a while. You cannot expect to have one rule for trade flowing one way and then try and exempt certain businesses just because you don't like them. European Governments are not allowed to reject all Genetically modified soya so the US can not reject all gambling.
Before Bush came into office the US had never lost a single case at the WTO. Now he has lost at least two. The last one I remember was against Europe with regard to an import tax on steel. Here is a link or two:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3291537.stm
http://themanufacturer.com/us/detail.html?contents_id=1726
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article77803.ece
In that case the US backed down fairly quickly as the tariffs Europe was going to impose were all designed to damage the economy in places Bush needed to get re-elected. One example given was taxing Florida oranges heavily and making them far more expensive than those from elsewhere. This is what every last tariff was designed to do. The European Union chose products where the same item could be obtained elsewhere for a competitive price (but not after a 30% tax hike was imposed on the US produce).
In this case turning Antigua into a file sharing haven will be an annoyance, but probably not as dire as what Europe was aiming for. This is especially true when you look at the amounts involved. In this case 21 million dollars per year is fairly small compared to the 2.2 billion that the last dispute could have cost had the US not backed down.
I dont read
I guess this means the GPL is also null and void there as well.
Not that I'm trying to be a Troll, just a random thought that crossed my mind as interesting.
...does the top post on the page get modded redundant?
Put down the mod points and the crack pipe. They don't mix.
- The retail cost; top dollar or discount store
- Wholesale (bulk)
- Cost to manufacture
- Price that Antigua chooses to sell it at
If the last: then if they find the most expensive copyrighted items and sell copies at 1 penny each, it could cause a lot of damage. It will cause even more damage if all the sales are products of one company - could make it go bust.Now - $21 million may seem like a considerable award. However, according the the RIAA's calculations, this only covers the single "Just a Lil Bit" by artist 50 Cent.
Do the guys running the pirate bay need help moving their servers?
www.cheapDVD.ag
:~)
Will work soon.
There's a Disney joke in this somewhere.
for "pirates of the caribbean: at world's end" on dvd
i think antigua should give that sucker away for free
simply because, a caribbean nation pirating a movie called pirates of the caribbean is just too f***ing funny
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
$21 Million in copyright infringement. At the current rate, that would be... what... like a half dozen CDs?
Caribbean Pirates!
So you think The Pirate Bay is going to start up a sister site?
As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable Slashdot 2.0.
Fantastic! The WTO Ruling has officially sanctioned the real The Pirates of the Caribbean. The irony being, they can create t-shirts and merchandise without having to pay royalties to Disney.
Sig it.
in ...
ANTIGUITY
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Why limit this to just copying - there could be greater opportunity in derivative works. Perhaps now I can go to Antigua to rewrite and refilm Star Wars I, II and II the way they ought to have been if George Lucas wasn't such a dick?
So now the Caribbean has tropical beaches, scantily-clad island girls, gambling *AND* free, legal DVDs?
Screw Ohio... Antigua or bust.
You misspelled "imaginary property"
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Excellent. So who's going to register http://antiguatorrent.com?
So, some international group has decided on its own that because this island is upset at not being able to take Americans for lots of money, that they can now steal my IP?
How do we sue the WTO?
This is also means that the GPL will no longer apply in Antigua.
1. pull out of the treaty, preserve your morals, impoverish your society financially
2. stay in the treaty, have some of your morals challenged, enrich your society financially
go ahead and pick
but you can't sign a treaty with someone then break it when you want to. all or nothing, you don't get to ignore the rules when they hurt you, and insist upon the rules when they hurt someone else
which, if you will note, is a moral philosophy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Does this mean the porn in their hotel rooms is now free? Huzzah!
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
Does anyone seriously think that $21M/year is going to change the US behavior?
Google was started by a 50% European team.
Nokia is European.
Television was invented here.
The Compact disc was invented here.
The automobile, albeit slightly longer than your arbitrary 100 years.
Digital computing.
I shan't go on.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
This is going to cause some chaos.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I expect to see Antiguan schools with pirated copies of Windows, Office, and Photoshop on as many computers as possible. Maybe the government will start passing out free Enterprise software to businesses to boost the economy. I'm sure they can do better than to pass out free music.
America was invented in Europe.
"If the people of the United States (or any country) want to ban online gambling then what business of the WTO is it? "
Well, if you join the WTO asking it to enforce your IP laws, you can't complain if they enforce somebody else's laws as well. That would be like saying "I'm all for government benefits, but I'm not in favor of taxes". Sure, we do that now, but it's not logical.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
...back in the times of Pirates of the Caribbean...
...they was btw. often also paid/protected by one of the superpowers.
It's not enough. The USA won't even notice this little pin prick.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Antigua could legally release any US software's source code under a GPL like license, and the vendor would have to prove each year that Antigua has violated them for more than $21 mil. $21,000,000 is a hell of a write off every year, especially if you aren't selling hundreds of thousands if not millions of copies of the software out side of Antigua.
Microsoft? Apple? Diebold? Cisco? Oracle?
A single person with access to code and a $21 million a year grudge to burn might already be shopping for a 1-way ticket to Antigua.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Not anti-anything except misinformation, so get over that to begin with. Follow the wikipedia link and read it yourself, no spinning necessary. I didn't post anything that wasn't there. In fact, so you don't even have to click the link:
As experienced by other European volume car makers, Peugot's U.S. sales faltered and finally became uneconomical, as the Peugeot 505 design aged. Several ideas to turn around sales in the United States, such as including the Peugeot 205 in its lineup, were considered but not pursued. In the early nineties, the newly introduced Peugeot 405 proved uncompetitive with domestic and import models in the same market segment, and sold less than 1,000 units. Total sales fell to 4,261 units in 1990 and 2,240 through July, 1991. This caused the company to cease U.S. operations after 33 years. There are currently no known plans to return to the American market.
It's great that they can do just fine without being in the US market - what does that mean? It doesn't mean what you want it to mean, that the US is useless and unnecessary. It simply means the obvious: a company can do well without being in the US market. So what? And yes, the EU GDP is larger than the US. Does that mean that #2 (a small margin from first but a larger margin from third; 200 million less people than the EU) doesn't matter anymore?
Google was started by a 50% European team.
Nokia is European.
Television was invented here.
The Compact disc was invented here.
The automobile, albeit slightly longer than your arbitrary 100 years.
Digital computing.
So what? That's my big answer.
a) There were other search engines before Google, and besides, I thought Europeans always haughtily say that Russia isn't a part of Europe.
b) No one cares about Nokia - just another cell phone and Motorola's work just as well.
c) Television, blah, was invented in the USA... spinning disks don't cut it.
d) Automobile, blah, Mercedes, except for the AMG, is the most overrated car on the planet.
e) Digital computing, means nothing without the transistor, made in the USA.
This is my sig.
...who can do this. Antigua and Sweden.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
Similarly, this doesn't inpinge upon US sovereignty, in that it doesn't go to the US and extract value from US bank accounts. It simply allows this Caribbean country to exercise their own sovereignty within their borders in a way that they had given up when entering the WTO.
They had a valid complaint, the WTO ruled, the US willfully ignored that ruling for years. As damages, the WTO is sanctioning specific actions that this country may take within its own borders. Essentially, the WTO is restoring a degree of sovereignty to this little country. We're still free to invade, or impose our own sanctions, or what have you.
We have to live with the idea that if we do things other people don't like within our borders, they're going to do things that we don't like within theirs. The WTO is simply the mechanism that the world uses to validate and sanction certain complaints.
The ______ Agenda
(oh wait, I must be new here...this is Slashdot, we no longer care about intelligible discussions, we just post the same damn stuff that everyone else does, over and over and over...multiple times even, just for good measure.)
The Hollywood Reporter article just regurgitates what we already know and have already discussed ad nauseum here on Slashdot...heck, the summary itself even references that recent commentary from December 21st so it already knows it's being redundant... The very least the poster could do would be be to reference some original source materials like, I don't know, maybe the WTO dispute page where you can read the ruling yourself?
bah.
Older Slashdot commentary regarding the Antigua-US gambling dispute:
Antigua population: 69000 (wikipedia)
Damage of infriging every single piece of all US IP per year: $21 million
Damage per capita per year = $304.35, to share within a circle of 69000 people.
Did I get there first?
First you would have to smuggle the books into Antigua (They have no library and their former Prime Minister once famously said: Antiguans are not a reading people")
Antigua already pirates copyrighted material (ever been to one of their video rental places??, I have) so its really no big deal. If they tried to export anything, their internet bandwidth would be overloaded (take my word for it, again, I've been there, there's only so much you can download using two halves of a coconut shell and some old fishing line) and they have NO ability to manufacture anything.
Further about half their tourism dollars would dry up when customs started going through every suitcase coming back to the US looking for illegal DVDs and CDs.
I think the WTO was poking fun at them by awarding them the right to use "intellectual property" ~ they wouldn't be able to figure out how!
Don't think so?
Look here. And here.
You can bet all those millions from the MAFIAA to the DEMOCRATS is buying something.
US residents can legally download music from iTunes because Apple has a negotiated license from the copyright holder to distribute this music.
It could be argued that Antigua et al. has in effect been granted a license to distribute music copyrighted in the US, and downloading music from servers in Antigua by US residents is therefore also legal.
Just send the navy to cut all communication lines to the country...at best they will be stuck with satellite transmission - which is very bad for internet transmissions. And there's no way they could prove the CIA/whomever did it.
Oh? all of your telephone and data lines have been cut? We're sorry.
The United States government doesn't own the copyright to the materials -- the producers of those materials own the copyright. It is outrageous that the WTO can give away the copyright of the producers in order to punish the United States. Personally, I think the copyright owners should be able to sue the WTO for losses.
to buy an island? This is the perfect location, it even has built in lawsuit protection!
That doesn't seem like a lot of money, but is that the profit that they are allowed to make, or the value of goods that can be copied? For instance, this would hurt a lot more if Antigua decided to sell DVDs for 1/10th of a penny profit each :).
"In other news, tonight President Bush announced in to the American people that Antigua is a terrorist state and sponsor of Al Qaeda. Bush repeatedly stated his desire for military action to inva... er liberate the country and it's people. Bush also praised Disney and the RIAA for endorsement of the Antigua liberation from terror."
Brielle
Arge ye all pirates now move the da ole Caribbeans to trade legal songs arge!
Just imagine for a moment if the rest of the world started to price oil in Euros instead of US Dollars Which some are already sugesting because of the dramatic fall in value of the US Dollar over the last few years.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
In terms of Antigua - you're right who cares.
But I think the WTO is sending a warning to US legislators of what might happen if they try something similar in larger markets. There is a reason the US signed the WTO - overall it was to their advantage . However, if they are not going to respect the disadvantageous parts of the agreement then there is no reason to expect anyone else to. The ability to grant a complainant the right to partially ignore the treaty (especially for something the US values so much like IP) allows this to happen without a complete abrogation of the agreements which noone wants. The US is not big enough (nor has it ever been) not to feel the effects of an all-out trade war.
Seems like if they can ignore the patents then the should also be allowed to ignore the arbitrary pricetag associated with whatever it is and sell anything they want (not to the US of course) for any price they choose.. a penny a copy for some nice industrial strength Enterprise software would wake up a few people..
I wonder if some torrent sites that have been having legal trouble lately could setup shop there and save themselves the hassle?
Remember folks: Free markets are good when the WTO works for us, it's bad when it works for others.
It was supposed to be a tool to impose our will on our "partners" not a trade organization in any way.
From the 2 pages of discussion that i have read, most of the comments are along the lines of "YAY legal warez" however move away from the it domain for a sec, from my knowledge of us chemical/medical exports is that its mostly IP biased, they get the WTO to stamp on anyone making their particular medicines. hopefully this alows for arg to produce actual cost price medicines(not grossly inflated IP costs that go with), and be able to distribute them to those whom need it most.
another thought,dose this 21m count per use, or could arg "use" a percentage on A item that could be reproduced without "charging" against their 21m?
What is needed now is for every US company with any significant revenue produced by digital goods (music, movies, software, etc.) to set up a subsidary in Antigua and register their copyright with the government there. That then removes any and all risk of their rights being violated - the copyright applicable in Antigua would not be through the Berne convention but would be locally registered.
So Antigua doesn't recognize US copyright... no problem, there is then a local registration.
Pity the folks that don't have an Antigua subsidary. They are screwed because I don't see how this can be confined as long as the redistribution originates in Antigua. Claim it is a derivative work created in Antigua. Game over, folks.
It is all free now. Just like you want it to be.
Sheesh.
They're getting a license, under the treaty, to sell a certain amount of US-copyrighted goods as compensation for the US refusing to abide by WTO rules. It's not unlimited, and it's perfectly legal.
No need to worry, when word gets out about the "open door" Antigua will provide, I think you can expect that all of the download requests that will invariably inundate the few servers they have will cause those systems to crash and burn in a nice flaming pile of goo. Your problem should solve itself in seconds.
... limited to some $21 million a year.
If you use the RIAA's estimates of the value of a copyrighted song, this would amount to somewhere between 3 and 4 CDs.
So really, of how much value could this be to the folks of Antigua?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
My favorite Quote "$21million a year in intellectual property rights suspension going forward indefinitely is not such a bad asset to have." I for one can hardly wait for my case of Antiguan Mickey Mouse T-shirts to arrive.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
shit. as id we need another reason to pull out, but this one is just the most glaring reason... some international body has decided that a country can ignore our copy rights because we do not want our citizens to be able to access on-line gambling?
an internal policy is being influenced by another country and as a reward for their affront to our internal policies, they get to ignore our copyrighted material?
The definition I quoted comes from Princeton's WordNet. I don't think, anyone would suspect them of any particular partisanship.
Those people (and they are everywhere, Rosie O'Donnel among them) simply use the word as a derogatory without realizing its meaning.
Yes, motive is particularly important for the definition.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Just to start off the idea: As some of us are aware, Office 2007 prohibits reverse engineering of the product in it's EULA. So for example, I can't buy a copy of Office 2007, install it, and run a disassembler against it to ... let's say ... figure out the Word2007 save file format. It's prohibited. If I did this and published my findings, Microsoft would say, "You violated your license agreement, and you're liable for the damages caused by ruining our control of the format, we get all the fruits of your labor, plus fines, oh, and to top it all off, the moment you broke the EULA, you broke copyright because you no longer had a right to have that copy of the software, so we'll see you in federal court too." So nobody reverse engineers this way. But it's the most effective way.
With me so far? Ok, so now we've got this Antigua WTO decision and someone outside the US can buy a copy of Antigua Productivity Suite 2007 which happens to be a legal copy of Microsoft Office 2007 with the EULA stripped off. Instead of licensing it, they are purchasing a copy. Just like purchasing a book. They could cut it up, post details about how it works internally, and lots of other interesting stuff.
Am I on to something, or missing something?
Of course this could also be used against a GPL work, like Linux. Since the teeth of the GPL lies in the idea, "your copyright license depends on these terms, and if you don't agree, you have no license to copy." Well, Antigua could make a copy now. I could buy it, get no source, and have no right to the source. Maybe I could buy a copy of Linux with source, but not be bound by the GPL in things I do with it?
"I guess someone somewhere prefers old-fashioned crime family style organized crime for profit be kept as a separate matter."
Maybe a few descendants of a family of filthy rich Cuba based sugar plantation owners and rum runners? And so it goes...
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"So, it is your understanding, that police law-enforcement and private lawsuits are Acts of Terror? Wow..."
I'll bite on that one, yes quite often some persons and/or agency's ie:"police law-enforcement" AND certain legal whores who allow or act to bring certain types of "private lawsuit" INTENTIONALLY act in ways to instill terror in individuals they know have done nothing morally wrong with the intent of causing a third party fiducial damage, exposure or discomfort. Happens all the time, just because YOU have not been a victim YET does not mean it does not happen. Personally I consider the premeditated, calculated and wanton destruction of the Constitution and thus our liberty an act of terrorism, and so I think will history, at university level analysis, if they survive the next fifty years. Chew on that.
"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own." Thomas Jefferson
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/terror
terror
3 entries found.
Main Entry:
terror Listen to the pronunciation of terror
Pronunciation:
\ter-r, te-rr\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French terrour, from Latin terror, from terrre to frighten; akin to Greek trein to be afraid, flee, tremein to tremble -- more at tremble
Date:
14th century
1: a state of intense fear2 a: one that inspires fear : scourge b: a frightening aspect c: a cause of anxiety : worry d: an appalling person or thing; especially : brat3: reign of terror4: violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands
synonyms see fear
-- terrorless Listen to the pronunciation of terrorless \-ls\ adjective
Antigua is also a member of the Caribbean Basin Initiative, a program for preferential trade with the U.S. that includes copyright tenets. Sure, Antigua can use the WTO decision to ignore U.S. copyright (within limits), but if they do so then the Americans can shut off their (relatively) preferential access to American markets, something that Antigua cannot afford.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
*D*MCA means *D*emocrat
No, *D*MCA means *D*igital, you big *D*ummy.
The government enforces all property rights (not just IP). No government = no property rights.
Does it matter if Antigua can set its own price for individual copies?
Take all songs/movies and use this number to divide 21 million then divide by the average number of songs/movies they intend to distribute, giving the cost they might be able to charge the average user for any particular US recording/movie.
It might not make them more than $21 million, but it sure would alter the way business is done in the move/recording industries. Overnight Antigua has become a powerhouse, with TEMENDOUS leverage. Anyone who argues with their way of doing business might just be hit with a price cut!
Now why do I get the feeling that Antigua would make a perfect forward base for accommodating men and materials being shipped to Iraq. Invading, doing a "Diego Garcia" on the island, and then accommodating all sorts of military hardware on the island would simply be efficient use of resources. When (not if) President Bush III decides to invade Venuzuela, having a base forward of florida will be invaluable. Until the Chinese nukes start to land.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
If I understand the situation correctly, copyright holders are paid a percentage of the retail price. If Antigua can set a very low retail price (nearly free) it can essentially distribute unlimmited copies of any work "copyrighted" under US law (as modified by the adoption of the Berne Treaty Protocols of 1989). Ironically, compensation in this public law, as far as I can tell, is focused only on the issue of providing relief to copyright holders in the event of harm through "breach of copyright". It does not stipulate specifically who can sell "copyrighted" works or what they can charge for them so long as the transactions provide for legitimate remuneration to the copyright holders. Given the ruling it would appear that Antigua can now set any price it wants for ANY work that it can copy and distribute and essentially manipulate the entire copyright process using their $21 million "copyright window", so long as it remunerates the copyright holders their "fair share" of the selling price. Thus, it would appear that Antigua can leverage their "$21 million copyright window" in any way they see fit and do so consitent with treaty obligations.
What has gambling to do with copyright?
Wouldn't it be a better idea to let them choose to kill one US-citizen for free?
Who the hell ever told these bunch of EU bureaucrats that they have the authority to give away someone else's intellectual property rights. When did it ever become acceptable for a group like WTO to assume this much authority? I guess we can expect to hear from China's government that their courts have decided it is okay for companies in China to infringe on any and all IPs.
It is time for the US to withdraw from the WTO and let that bunch of vultures gnaw on their own flesh for a while.What's this? We're the most powerful nation again?
Seriously though, after all of the outsourcing, the fall of the Dollar, our inability to wage an effective "war," our ineffectual political system, our increasing world debt, the outward exodus of scientists and students, the latency of tech adoption, our increasingly draconian law, and the world's general attitude towards the US, I really am surprised that we still can call ourselves the most powerful nation. If stifling immigration was what the US was seeking, it has done a pretty good job of making the grass a little less greener.
I bet we'll start seeing more and more of these sanctions as the US loses its dominance and other countries become the key players. All we have left is a hint of respect and, unless we change for the better soon, it appears we'll be losing that as well.
Adapt, adopt, or get out of the way!
If one reads the treaty closely, there is no provision in it that gives the USTR the power to enforce such penalties that would "OTHERWISE be considered acts of piracy, counterfiting or other forms of IPR infringement" (note emphasis). The US gave away that privilege when it signed the treaty. Since these articles (works) have been deemed exempt from the ordinary enforcement in the treaty (at least up to $21M) by the statutory mechanisms within WTO, there is technically no infringement (although there would have been hadn't the WTO ruled otherwise). But if Antigua/Barbados can now legitimately sell the pirated works to people in third countries, they can largely dictate what the price will be in the entire market (outside of US) for all other copies and still legally give the copyright holder's their share of the take (based on a percentage of the RETAIL price [not what the copyright holders would WISH THEY COULD GET]). Even if the US were to penalize its own citizens, it is now powerless under the WTO to enforce such treaty-abrogatinng enforcements on third countries. Why would consumers in these countries pay more when you can get a "legitimate" copy from Antigua/Barbados for nearly free. The US copyright holders will simply have to pay a kickback to Antigua/Barbados just to be sure they keep the retail price high enough that the leverage Antigua/Barbados has been given under the WTO ruling will not be used to flood the world market with perfectly legal but "otherwises pirated" copies sold for fair, but incredibly cheap prices to third countries. Just think of all the "goodwill" they can generate in 3rd countries (or among US tourists abroad) by making all US copyrighted works available within the $21 million copyright free window. Looks as if a bunch of US corporate lawyers outsmarted themselves on this one. Sometimes when you have your cake and eat it too, you can get one hell of a case of indigestion.
What the hell are you talking about, the USG, United States Government, doesn't get it's authority from any fucking treaty with the WTO, it gets it from the Constitution, and it can't negotiate away that which it doesn't own. My property rights are my property rights, and any treaties entered into by the government is between the governments. If the government wants my property to settle a they have to use the due process of condemation through eminent domain.
What you peons in the rest of the world fail to understand is that the Americans threw off the yoke of serfdom when we declared our independence.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Ahem.
I tell you this on behalf of the rest of the world.
You Americans are perfectly free to go fuck yourselves. You ain't getting any royalties from us for the privilege though.
If you can read this you've gone too far.
What precedent is the lawyer for Antigua talking about?
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
So, do you or do you not consider Kevin Mitnick's prosecution an Act of Terror?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.